Bruises on My Memories Part 2
by electric.currant
Summary: In cursed Storybrooke, a perpetually flummoxed Mary Margaret can't seem to not entangle herself with Mayor Mills.
1. She Wore Red Dresses

**She Wore Red Dresses and Told Such Sweet Lies**

I dreamt a lot-every night, in fact. I hardly ever remembered the dreams, but I knew I had them, and I _felt_ them for several minutes after I woke up every morning.

The birds singing at my window always seemed to remind me of something, as if they were actively trying to remind me, but that was silly, and even if it wasn't, I never did remember. I just felt very strange.

Every morning was like this-ambiguous strange feelings and birds at my window and then coffee and then school.

I also didn't remember my childhood. Well, I remembered a half dozen very specific memories and dozens more vague ones, but I didn't remember what I wanted to be when I grew up, who gave me my first kiss, where my family had gone on vacation-all the things television told me I should remember.

So as I stood in front of my class, or sat reading the students stories or cutting out pieces for arts and crafts projects, I wondered if this was what I was supposed to be doing. I couldn't envision myself doing anything else. I had trouble daydreaming, too, and that troubled me, as well.

I wanted to remember my dreams and my childhood and all the aspirations I had once had so that I could compare and contrast with my current trajectory, but I seemed to have a mental block.

I should have scheduled what would probably amount to several sessions with Dr. Hopper, but I didn't.

Instead I found myself, on many occasions, impotently airing my feelings to coma patients I didn't know, and even worse, on this particular occasion, trying to talk to Mayor Mills in the parking lot after a school board meeting,

"Madame Mayor," I began. I didn't have anything particular to say to her, and I knew she loathed inefficient chatter, but somehow my legs had carried me to her, and here I was. She smelled familiar, but I couldn't place where I knew the smell from. It was somewhere buried in my memories that refused to surface but haunted me regardless. It was a unique smell-like a campfire burning roses, and I couldn't imagine a perfume company selling something like that. I had to assume it was just her.

She turned around from where she was standing at the driver's door of her car, and her eyes were glassy and unfocused until they met mine, and then they were piercing and all fire.

"What is it, Miss Blanchard?" When anyone else said my name, I felt next to nothing, but when she said my name I felt everything all at once.

"I-" I really didn't know what to say, especially with her eyes searching me as they were. One of her hands was in a pocket of her blazer, and the other was on her car-it was tense and looked as though it would claw into the metal if it had the power. Her footing seemed unsteady, and worry arrested me. Mayor Mills never appeared shaken in any way, but here in the parking lot, she looked like a caged animal, her eyes powerful but her body weak. It reminded me of something, and a dove cooed in the distance-or maybe it was a pigeon-and I felt strange. She was staring at me, waiting for me to say something, so I did. "Are you feeling all right?"

She straightened her posture, and something blazed in her eyes, and I knew she really wasn't feeling all right at all, and I knew it was none of my business, but I somehow wanted it to be.

"Surely you didn't follow me out to my car just to make small talk."

"No, I-" Maybe I had followed her out to her car just to make small talk, but maybe I wanted to say something real to her. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't say it. I didn't even know what it was.

"Well, run along, then, dear." She turned too quickly and lost her balance briefly. I reached out to her, and she grabbed my outstretched arm. Our eyes met, and hers flashed with fear and then anger, and they reminded me again of the same thing her smell reminded me of-that thing in the back of my brain that wouldn't come to the front, that lived in a rolling sea of forgotten memories, tossing turbulently and occasionally washing over my senses but only ever enough to dampen the bow and leave a salty taste in my mouth.

"Can I see you home?" I said before I lost my nerve. She tightened her grip on my arm, and I could feel her nails and the heat of her palm. It felt unnaturally hot, and I wondered if she had a fever.

"I'd rather you didn't," she said, but her hand was still clutching my arm, forcefully and almost painfully.

"I don't want to overstep my bounds," I said. "But I don't think you should be driving."

"And you always know what's best, don't you, Miss Blanchard." She pulled me toward her with that grip on my arm. "I'm fine," she said in a growl. She released me in a way that was more like throwing me away and stared at me for another moment. If I hadn't known better, I would've suspected she was daring me in some way.

I backed away without a word, and she got into her car. I could see through the window that her hands were trembling and she was trying to gain control of them by gripping the steering wheel the way she'd gripped my arm. Her head rolled back onto her headrest, and she shut her eyes. After a moment, she scooted across the bench seat and opened her eyes to pierce me again with them, and she motioned for me to get in. I did.

"Drive me home if you must, but don't talk to me," she said, and her head rolled back onto the passenger's side headrest, and her hands held the hem of her skirt, white-knuckled.

I spent a few seconds looking at her, wondering what was wrong with her and wondering whether this was a good idea until she cleared her throat, and I turned her keys in the ignition.

I stared straight out at the road in front of me, and intermittently I could feel her eyes on me. The air in the car was heavy and humid, and I wanted to ask her questions. Actually I didn't want to ask her questions. I always had trouble asking her questions. I wanted her to volunteer the information I wanted to know, but I knew she wouldn't do that, especially because I couldn't exactly name all the information I wanted to know. Mostly-at this moment, anyway-I wanted to know why she looked as though she was about to faint.

When we arrived at her house, I parked, and we sat in silence for almost a whole minute before she said,

"Aren't you going to open the door for me?" She hadn't moved-hadn't even opened her eyes, and I hadn't moved either. I had barely breathed. I couldn't anticipate her, and so I waited for specific instructions. I was sure I seemed stupid. And I felt stupid. I would have taken anyone home if they seemed ill, but I was sure I wouldn't feel so stupid about it. I felt as though I was more of a burden than anything, and I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe I should just run away as fast as I could.

I got out and opened her door for her anyway. She took my hand that I hadn't even consciously offered, and I supported her weight as we walked to her house. We had never been this close, and the feel of her and the scent of her set off an unidentifiable alarm in my brain.

Once inside, she deposited herself on her couch. I couldn't be sure she'd ever opened her eyes on the trip here as they were shut still or again, and I stood in the middle of her living room wringing my hands, waiting for something.

"Pour us a drink, dear." She could've been using the editorial plural, but I wasn't sure, so I poured us both brandy. I didn't like alcohol much, but my mother had always said a little brandy cured all ills. I cleared my throat as I leaned in to hand her the drink, and her eyes shot open. They were glistening, and something in them frightened me-something mean and dark, which she tried to cover as she reached for the drink in my shaking hand.

"Thank you, dear," she said with a smile that was more sneer than anything else.

I took a drink and tried not to notice the way her eyes were plumbing the depths of my face.

"Have a seat," she said.

"I really ought to be on my way," I said. She scoffed.

"Funny, you don't seem like the type of girl who drinks and runs." We locked eyes, and the meanness was still there, but it was sparkling invitingly, like a game that was only fun if both of us were playing. I sat against my better judgment. "There. Much better," she said in kind of a purr. "It's a good thing you were in that parking lot, Miss Blanchard. I might not have made it home."

"Um yes," I said. "But. How did you get there in the first place?" I had seen her during the meeting-pale and shaky.

"By sheer force of will," she said, taking a long drink.

"You're certainly very dedicated." I watched as one finger traced a pattern on her thigh.

"Not the worst thing that's ever been said about me." The finger continued tracing over to the armrest, and her eyes watched it, too, until they snapped back to me, searching me for what I would say next.

"Well, I'm sure all politicians have their share of enemies."

"Is that a polite way of saying I shouldn't count on your vote in the next election?" She was still purring, and I was uncomfortable, but I decided to play along anyway. It was a strange game, and I didn't know the rules.

"I haven't exactly read your platform," I said. I took a drink. She laughed.

"Well, I'd like to be able to say I'm above buying votes, but here you are in my living room, drinking my liquor."

"It's very good liquor, at least," I said, venturing a small smile. She laughed again.

"Will you be that cheaply bought, Miss Blanchard?" She resumed tracing the armrest, but neither of us watched this time. Our eyes were on each other.

"I was merely complimenting your taste. I never promised anything."

"Of course. You wouldn't, would you?" she said, her eyes and voice taunting me with something I couldn't identify.

"I don't know. I've been known to promise a lot of things." It had come from the back of my mind, and I couldn't stop it, and now it was out, and it had done something to her, somehow. Something receded in her eyes, and they were no longer glistening.

"Yes, well. It's been lovely chatting with you, but I'm tired."

"Yes, of course!" I said, standing, mercifully not spilling the rest of my drink.

"I'm sure you can find the door."

I did. And then I was standing in her driveway without a ride home.

I walked back toward the district office feeling tense and sad. I wasn't sure if I was more tense and sad before or after our strange interaction.

xxxxx

I dreamt I was running through the woods. I didn't know if I was running toward something or away from something; I knew only that I needed to be in motion.

I woke up sweating, and I reached for my dream journal, which might as well have been made of post-its for how much I couldn't usually remember.

A scrap of paper fell out. It was a folded sheet of letterhead bearing the mayor's monogram. I opened it and found my handwriting describing a dream in which Regina-that was how I described her in the note-and I kissed, and then, when we pressed our bodies together, and I thought she would deepen the kiss, she strangled me instead.

I lay in bed the rest of the night with the note on my stomach. I did not remember that dream, and I certainly did not know why I would have written it on her letterhead and then hidden it in my dream journal.

I spent what seemed like an eternity drifting in and out of a restless sleep until my alarm clock rang. I would be very tired for the school play tonight, but I had a strange feeling that wouldn't be the worst part of the evening.

And of course I had been right. I was just taking off my wig when I heard footsteps behind me in the dressing room. Somehow I knew it was her before I turned and saw her with her hands in her blazer pockets and a mean smile on her face. The room felt smaller with her in it, and my eyes flitted toward the exit before I could stop them with the part of my brain that knew she would neither be kissing me nor murdering me. I didn't know which was the more frightening thought.

"Oh. Excuse me. I thought this was the ladies' room," she said, her voice velvet and lilting.

"It's down the hall, to the left." She moved toward me instead of away.

"If you don't mind, I just wanted to fix my lipstick anyway."

"It looks fine to me." Yes, I had looked at her lips, and yes, I could have kicked myself.

"I'm glad you approve, dear. But I'd like to check it myself." She was next to me now, and we were both looking at her in the mirror. "Am I-disturbing you? Shouldn't you be taking off your costume or something?" she said without looking at me.

"Yes," I said, moving my hands down to the buttons of my faux cow-hide vest and willing my eyes to do the same. This was absurd. It was a dream I didn't even remember, and I didn't have to be weird about disrobing in front of another woman. "What did you think of the play?" I said, mostly to distract myself.

"I found it deplorable." She looked at me then in the mirror. Her eyes were smiling that mean smile again. "In fact, if I weren't counting on the education constituency, who seem to adore you, I would have you fired for presenting such trash."

"You're joking," I said, flabbergasted.

"Ask anyone, dear. I don't have much of a sense of humor." But her eyes were laughing, and I felt small and cornered.

"But I-it's just a play. For children."

"Yes, but it would be nice if the children had some adult supervision." She turned away from the mirror to face me. I got the feeling again that she was daring me, goading me, and I instinctively somewhere in my gut wanted to take the challenge, but I wasn't sure how. I was angry, but not as angry as I should have been, and I didn't know what I should do about that, either.

"I fail to see what you're trying to accomplish, Mayor Mills." I had thought it would sound as good as it had felt to say it, but her eyes turned from laughing mean to just plain mean, and I felt even more cornered but like I might be able to claw my way out if I had to.

"I suppose someone as coddled and fawned over as you wouldn't consider this mentoring," she said lightly but with venom.

"You're right. I would consider this bullying." I stood straight, and I felt strong. I didn't know where the strength was coming from.

"Oh? And if I were to lodge a formal complaint? Would that also be bullying? Or would that be a concerned citizen reacting to an ineffectual teacher?" She enunciated each word so clearly that it made me want to do something, anything to get her to stop talking. She was fire, and I thought maybe ice might do it.

"Do what you like. You have no basis for a complaint," I said.

"Don't I? This play is counterfactual, not to mention asinine." We were close together, and that fire-burning-roses smell was making me reel.

"I doubt they'd even reprimand me over that little evidence of my ineptness." She laughed, and there was alcohol on her breath.

"I'm sure there's plenty more evidence to be found." If I inhaled just right I'd be able to identify exactly what alcohol she'd been drinking. I didn't know why it suddenly made a difference to me.

"If there is, I'd be more than happy for you to find it. For my own edification." Her liquor was somehow making me bold. In fact, it might have been I who had closed the distance between us. Her eyebrow rose, and her eyes were gleaming. "Feel free to come audit my class any time you'd like."

"Oh, I will, Miss Blanchard." She looked me up and down. "And be sure to remember to take off that costume. However ridiculous it is, it is city property, after all." She flipped her hair and walked out.

I had heard rumors-that I had discounted because I had figured she was just a person with regular person problems like any of us-that she liked to meddle, rile people up, have her way and enjoy the ensuing carnage, but I'd never encountered it before. But here she was, invading dreams I'd forgotten I'd had and accosting me in dressing rooms. There was something in me that suspected she wanted something from me, and I didn't know what that something was. Most disconcertingly, I wanted to give it to her, and I wanted something in return-something intangible. Maybe whatever it was would come to me in a dream.

It was a nightmare. I didn't remember it when I woke, but I was sure it was a nightmare from the way I wanted to cry when the birds chirped at me from the window, seemingly taunting me with something they knew and I didn't, which was ludicrous, but I cried anyway.

I had a half-day in-service in the afternoon, and I didn't know what to do with my morning. I thought about going to see that handsome coma patient at the hospital, but I wanted to talk to someone who would talk back, open their eyes and see me, smell like something other than a hospital.

Before I knew it, I was outside the mayor's office. I didn't want to see her, but somehow I had packed up my lesson plans, planning to prove something to her somehow.

Her voice told me to come in, and I did, and I suddenly wasn't so strong. She was sitting behind her desk wearing red and looking as though she was expecting me, smirking with her red lips, and laughing with her smoky eyes. I didn't know why I'd thought it'd be a good idea to come here today and call attention to myself. She hadn't shown up to audit my class yet-it had been weeks, months, maybe-and I had been anticipating it with something that wasn't exactly fear but should have been.

"Hello, Mayor Mills." I took a deep breath and decided to be forthright and then leave as quickly as possible. "I assume you have not visited my classroom because you're a very busy woman. So I thought I would make it easier on you and bring you my lesson plans through the end of the school year." I had made it all in one breath and was now trying not to pant as I looked at her looking at me.

"That's very thoughtful of you, dear." She paused and licked her lips, and I shouldn't have watched so closely, but I did, and I wanted to run away. "If you would just put them on my desk."

I walked closer, and her scent almost overpowered me. The circulation in this room must have been bad. I set the manila envelope on her desk and then stood there. I expected something. I almost flinched with expectation, and I didn't know what the expectation was. Finally, she said,

"Surely you have somewhere to be."

"I-of course I do, I-" Her eyebrows rose, and her eyes were laughing. Her mouth laughed, too.

"You didn't come by to ask me to lunch, did you?"

"No! I-"

"Goodness, dear. It was a joke." She was smirking still, and her eyes were gleaming again, and I needed to say something to make them either keep gleaming or stop gleaming.

"I thought you said you didn't have a sense of humor."

"Perhaps I did. Regardless, my schedule is full." She pushed the envelope a little ways across her desk with her pen and then looked back up at me.

"So is mine," I said. I was more relieved than anything else, but that little bit of something else nudged something in my brain, and I felt strange.

"Another time, then." Surely she didn't mean it. Her eyes said she didn't but that she was prodding me.

"Next week, before you audit my class," It rushed out before I could stop it, before I could even think what I was doing. I did not want to have lunch with this woman. But my words said otherwise.

"I am not eating at a school cafeteria," she said, still prodding, still smirking, still looking at me with a laugh in her eyes.

"I'll bring something." No! I would not either bring something. What was I doing?

"I hope you're not a vegetarian, Miss Blanchard. Because I do adore red meat." What was she doing? Was she flirting with me?

"At least we have one thing in common." Was I flirting with her? I needed to get out of here. If our previous interactions were any indication, she was bad news. She was probably doing this just to get enough dirt on me to fire me-although I had no idea why she wanted to do that, either. I was at a complete loss, and my heart was beating fast from the anxiety of it all, or maybe something else. If only she would talk to me instead of glare at me and say strange things to me.

"I'm sure we have more than one thing in common," she said almost offhandedly. We peered at each other. She was searching me, and I was searching her, and I didn't know if either of us were getting anywhere. She then opened the envelope and paged to next week. "How about I come in for this-" she sneered "-birdhouse thing."

"Yes. Good idea. You'll like the birdhouse unit, it's-"

"I'm sure I won't." And the gleam was gone. She was cold and professional, and I needed to get out.

xxxxx

The steak was slightly undercooked so that when I microwaved it it would be perfect. I had spent too much time on preparing everything about this day, and I didn't know what I expected, but I was certain I was prepared.

Except I wasn't at all, of course.

She was wearing red again, and I wasn't prepared to blush about it, but I did. And then I wasn't prepared for the way she was flaring at me already, eyes gleaming mean and daring but mostly mean. I was standing in front of my desk, and she charged in to within inches of me.

"I'll have you know, Miss Blanchard, that I'm here only to put a stop to this useless expenditure of resources. This unit is poorly planned, completely impractical, and downright stupid."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Are you deaf as well as incompetent?"

"How dare you barge in here and-"

"One cannot barge into a place one was invited." And there was the daring gleam again. It must have been true: She must have hinged her life upon riling people up. Fine. I wouldn't be riled. That would show her I was someone.

"Of course. You're right. If you'll excuse me, I'll just go and get your red meat."

"Eat it yourself. You'll need those calories when you're out of a job." She smelled of alcohol again, and it warmed my cheeks as much as it turned my stomach.

"If I can be fired for a well-received unit I've been doing for years, can a mayor be fired for drinking on the job?" I hadn't meant to get riled, but there I was. Maybe I just wanted to give her what she wanted, whatever that was. She looked into my face, and she looked as if she was about to say something completely cutting, but then she paused and laughed.

"There aren't any specific regulations against it. So you may have a hard time in litigation." I was taken aback, but I tried not to show it.

"Lucky for you," I said. She laughed again.

"Now back to the matter at hand," she said, trying to suppress her smile.

"No. I will not discuss it further," I said, drawing strength from somewhere, maybe her eyes. I shuddered at the thought. "If you'd like to file a complaint, do it. If not-"

"If not, what? Get out of your classroom? I don't think so, Miss Blanchard. As we've discussed previously, you invited me. It would be rude not to accept."

"And what about your attitude today hasn't already been rude?" She paused and looked me up and down.

"Excuse me, dear. I always forget one is supposed to compliment one's hostess before one launches into business talk." She looked me up and down again and licked her red lips. "Thank you for inviting me to audit your class. Your cardigan is very flattering." We stared at each other.

"Thank you," I said, not knowing what else there was to say. Maybe it was the liquor. Maybe she wasn't always this strange. But why was she drinking so much? I didn't have the chance to think about it further because she was sitting on my desk now, and her knee brushed me when she crossed her legs.

"Can I sit here, or would you prefer me in the back?" she said, just this side of suggestive.

"I think you might distract the students."

"Oh?" I cleared my throat.

"I mean, they'll probably think it's strange that the mayor is here in the first place." She smiled.

"Of course, dear. Put me wherever makes you most comfortable."

I wouldn't have been comfortable if she'd been watching via satellite from her summer home on Mars.

"Just. In the back somewhere. We'll be working at these tables in front."

The students filed in a few seconds after she'd gotten settled. My stomach was upset from not having eaten lunch and a strange flashback to a dream I half remembered from the night before about eating something sweet and falling down with Regina Mills laughing above me.

She was watching me the entire lesson, and she was taking notes, and I was trying not to panic. I didn't know what there was to panic about: the lesson was solid, and as I gave my final lecture about birds who find their way home, I had gained my stride again. This was probably the best I'd ever delivered this speech, and I couldn't tell whether it was because she was there or in spite of her being there. Either way there was a correlation, and if she would talk to me about it, I might be able to figure it out.

I caught her eyes as the bell chimed. They were gleaming a dare, not as mean, or maybe I was imagining that.

"As excruciating as that was," she said when the children had gone, "I'll be back tomorrow for the rest of the lesson."

She walked toward the door and then turned back.

"And you owe me a meal, Miss Blanchard."

I didn't know if I'd won or lost. I didn't know what the game was, and I didn't know whether that steak would heat up again, but I knew-although I tried so very hard not to-I wanted to watch her eat it.


	2. Little Drops of Truth

**Little Drops of Truth Fall from Your Eyes**

I woke up with a start, embarrassed and disoriented-embarrassed because I'd never fallen asleep during a school board meeting before and disoriented because I'd been asleep long enough to have a dream. I dreamt often but hardly ever remembered the actual dreams, and I hurried to write this one down at the bottom of the agenda.

I dreamt I was in a box. That was really the extent of it. I was lying down in some kind of box, and I saw the mayor's face above me. I felt a lot of emotions in the dream, and I still felt them now, but I couldn't pinpoint them. It was just a lot of nebulous feeling.

I looked across the boardroom to where she usually sat, but her chair was vacant.

A chill chased its way down my spine. I shouldn't have cared one way or the other, but somehow something felt very wrong.

Before I knew it, I was at her doorstep, my finger poised a half inch from her doorbell. An owl hooted, and in the moment that strange noise gave me pause, the door opened in a rush of silence and suction.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and her skirt suit was rumpled, and if I had had a reason for being there, I had forgotten it.

We stood there in a flabbergasted tableau for a moment before she straightened her posture and said,

"Miss Blanchard. Aren't you a little old to be selling Girl Scout cookies?"

She smelled like fire and flowers and liquor, and it all made me dizzy.

"You missed the school board meeting," I said as quickly as I could. I winced halfway through. It was stupid, and she was probably busy, and I shouldn't have come here.

"Yes, dear. I'm aware of that." She was leaning on her threshold, a hand bracing her on the door jamb as if she might fall over if she tried standing on her legs alone. Maybe that was why I had come. Maybe I had been worried about her.

"You never miss school board meetings." I would have winced again because I knew I was being tedious, but now I was surveying her body for damage. Maybe she was ill. Maybe she needed help of some sort. She shut her eyes and looked to be steadying herself. She opened them, and I tried to stare in them to find something, but she snapped them away.

"Yes, I'm aware of that, as well."

"And you always say that a mayor who doesn't-"

"Care about education isn't much of a mayor. Yes." She sighed and put her free hand over her eyes, pressing her temples delicately with her manicured fingers. "Is that why you came here? To reprimand me?" She removed her hand and stared at me. I felt translucent and as if she were looking straight through me to something else.

"No. I-" I was about to say I was worried about her, but I didn't think that would sound right, and I wasn't sure how true it was, so I stopped and fidgeted for a second. I was opaque again, and her eyes were on me, and they were angry.

"Why are you here, Miss Blanchard? And more importantly, when are you leaving?"

"I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd check to see if you were all right. And if you needed anything." It was the least stupid thing I could think to say, but it was still pretty stupid, and she rolled her eyes.

"Well, I don't. So feel free to go."

"Of course. I-" Her knees buckled slightly, and she struggled to catch herself on the door frame before I noticed. But I had noticed, and I instinctively grabbed for her. She took a half step backward, not wanting me to touch her, and I took a step forward, again instinctively. "Let me-" her eyes caught mine again, and we both panicked a bit about what I might say before her eyes stoned.

"Fine," she said. And when I touched her arm to steady her, she was rigid and hot to the touch, and I couldn't shake the feeling that she was very fragile, however unlikely that might have been.

"Let me help you back inside." She stared at me, and I thought for a moment she would say no or slap me or at least say something, but she didn't. She sighed, and I walked her to her couch. "If I may ask..." She was lying down now with her eyes shut. "Where were you going just now? And how did you think you were going to get there?" I was bolder when I couldn't see her looking at me. But that was short lived. She opened her eyes as if her lids were heavy theatre curtains, and I tried not to watch.

"Honestly, dear, I wasn't feeling so bad until you arrived." I didn't know if she'd meant it as a slam, but I irrationally took it as one. And then our eyes met, and hers weren't mean. They were just brown.

"Oh," I said. And she shut her eyes again. I was standing in her living room, looking at her limp, supine body, wondering why I was here. And she was so still that I thought she might've been asleep. I was just about to turn to leave when she said, still with closed eyes and very little movement,

"Do you ever experience the strange phenomenon of déjà vu, Miss Blanchard?"

I was taken aback by the question. We had never really talked before.

"No," I said finally. "But I dream a lot. And my dreams always feel more like memories, even though I know they aren't."

She was still lying there, but she seemed to have tensed slightly.

"And how do you know they aren't?" She said.

"Because you're always in them." I didn't know why I had said that. It wasn't even exactly true, or I didn't think it was because I hardly remembered the dreams in question. But it had come out, and her eyes were still closed, but she looked to be forcing them closed.

"Am I? What am I doing in these dreams of yours? Nothing too embarrassing, I hope."

"No." I thought back to the few dreams I remembered. "You're mostly just there. Smiling." She laughed.

"And that's how you know it's a dream?" She opened her eyes, and they were suddenly boring into me, and I was uncomfortable, but I also didn't want to leave.

"Yes," I said. She laughed again, but her eyes weren't laughing.

"Well, that's certainly enlightening, Miss Blanchard. Perhaps you should leave now."

"You're sure you're ok?"

"Yes. I'm sure I'll feel better as soon as you leave." There was a bite to her voice and that anger again in her eyes.

"I thought misery loved company," I said before I could stop myself.

"Misery never met you."

I would've preferred that she kick me in the shins.

xxxxx

I was late.

I was often late, and I hated that about myself. I had dozed off after school and dreamt about something I couldn't remember, and now I was late for the school play. But at least I didn't appear until scene five.

I scrambled into my wig and headed out the door.

Mayor Mills made me even later.

We ran into each other in the hallway as I was rushing to get back stage. Her eyes fixed on me, and they were angry and sad and laughing somehow simultaneously.

She glanced at the program in her hands and then back up at me.

"Indian Maid. I would've expected you to already be in your teepee by now."

"Yes, well, I hadn't planned on having a pow wow with you in the hallway." She laughed, but her eyes were laughing for a different reason, something beyond my grasp. I had a flash behind my eyes of a dream of her, looking exactly this way, but I couldn't place anything else.

"Don't let me stop you from getting to your adoring fans." It was biting and cruel, and I didn't know what she had meant by it.

We stared at each other, and she kept walking, and so did I.

The whole time during the play I kept thinking about that stare and how I wanted to stare for as long as it took to get to the bottom of it. I wanted to know what she was staring at when she stared at me, and I wanted to know what I was staring at when I stared at her. And I wanted, more than anything, to know why I had gone to her house the night of the school board meeting.

The play ended, and I was in the parking lot in my civilian clothes. And then she was there behind me, her voice precise and musical.

"Your performance lacked the charisma it had during the dress rehearsal." I turned around to see her stare, the same stare from the hallway earlier.

"I'm sorry to have disappointed you."

"It wasn't a disappointment, dear. I rather expected it." Her voice lulled, but her eyes blazed. And they were daring me. I made sure my eyes dared her back. She laughed and said, "It must be hard to take this asinine version of US history seriously."

"It is a play for children, after all," I said. I didn't know what she was trying to get at, but I knew she was at least partially inebriated from the sickly sweet smell of her-whiskey laced with roses and burning wood.

"Children are a lot smarter than some of us give them credit for," she said, and she was somehow closer to me than before, and I suspected if she got much closer I would smell like her when I got home.

"Would you like me to rewrite the script for next year? Add in some smallpox-infested blankets?" I said, mostly in a whisper, but I didn't know why.

"I don't know how well that would go over with the school board." She paused and then smiled again, a predatory smile. "But it might be amusing to see you fail."

"You're sure I would fail?" I asked, more weakly than I wanted to.

"If the school board didn't veto it, you can be sure I would."

"But weren't you just complaining-"

"I never complain. I edify, often utilizing constructive criticism." She was almost smiling, mostly sneering, and I needed her to stop.

"Oh. I see. What other edification do you see fit to share with me tonight?" Something shifted in her gaze, and we were suddenly sparring. I didn't exactly want to, but I couldn't stop myself from meeting the look she was giving me.

"Well, Miss Blanchard. Now that you've brought it up, we might as well discuss the rest of your probably just as spotty lessons."

"Yes, we might as well."

"I'm glad you're so amenable." And she seemed anything but glad. Was I winning? And if I was, what exactly was I winning?

"I'm glad you're so willing to spend your time helping to better me professionally," I said with as much bite as I could muster.

"Bring your lesson plans through the end of the semester to my office next week," she said, coldly, although her eyes were burning me.

"Of course. Thank you, Madame Mayor." She huffed at that and turned to leave.

"Tuesday? I'll bring lunch." I didn't know why I had said it. She turned and glared, and I wondered if maybe I had said it to provoke her, and I wondered why I would've wanted that.

"You'll do no such thing." And she was gone.

xxxxx

"You're late."

Mayor Mills was sitting at her desk, wearing red and looking mean and beautiful. I kicked the door closed behind me, and we stared at each other over my full arms.

"I told you not to bring lunch."

I walked over and set everything on her desk: two to-go bags from Granny's and a Manila envelope of lesson plans.

"I'm sorry, I-" Why was I apologizing? It was a nice thing to do, and I wasn't actually sorry. I straightened my posture. "Ruby said this was your favorite."

She continued to stare at me. Her eyes were still mean when she said,

"Thank you. But I don't have time for this. Especially because you are late. Hand me the lesson plans and please leave."

I pushed them across her desk, but I stayed standing there.

"Oh, excuse me for not being clear," she said with a mean smile. "Please leave. Now." She put on her reading glasses and started to rifle through the pages on her desk.

"I had déjà vu the other day," I said. I had said it so quietly that I thought maybe she hadn't heard me. Her eyes slowly rose to meet mine. They were staring through me again, and I felt unaccountably vulnerable.

"Oh?" She said. She took off her reading glasses. "Tell me about it." She had also spoken in just above a whisper, and I wondered why we were both talking like this. I wondered why she was interested, and I wondered why I was interested in how much she was interested.

"I was at the hospital." She raised an eyebrow. "I volunteer there sometimes. I was reading to a coma patient, and it felt...familiar somehow."

"That's not exactly what déjà vu is, Miss Blanchard, but thank you for the update." I could tell she was trying to put ice in her voice, but her eyes looked something like relieved.

"I mean, more than familiar. It felt like there was a memory at the back of my mind, but I couldn't reach it." She stared at me, through me, and then tapped her pen on the Manila envelope in front of her.

"Well, maybe you should spend less time trying to remember things with coma patients and more time working on lesson plans. From the little I have read so far, these seem abysmal."

I had suspected she would say something like this, and I thought I had prepared a rebuttal, but I must have forgotten it.

"I'm sorry they aren't up to your standards. What can I do to improve?" She stood up and narrowed her eyes.

"I'll have to read more thoroughly to answer that question." She stalked toward me, staring. We were standing inches apart now in front of her desk, and she brushed against me to reach the brown paper bag labeled "Mayor Mills." She opened it and rather lazily pulled out a French fry. I watched it all the way from bag to mouth, every mastication, and the licking of salt off her lower lip after she had swallowed, her throat flexing luxuriously. I hoped she didn't notice that I was blushing about it. But she smiled, and I knew she knew. I wished I knew anything about why that had happened.

"Thank you, Miss Blanchard. I'll be in touch," she said, still mostly whispering, still staring, still smiling.

"Yes, ok. You're welcome," I said and made the mistake of looking at her lips again and then turned to go.

"Don't forget your lunch, dear. I'd hate for you to be hungry the rest of the day."

"Yes, thank you, Mayor Mills." I took the bag she was offering me, and she smiled again, even meaner.

"Don't be surprised if I stop in to experience one of these putrid lessons first hand."

"Nothing you do surprises me," I said as I left. I just caught her smile widen before I shut the door.

It was probably the biggest lie I'd ever told.

She was late.

Of course she hadn't ever contacted me or let on at all when she might drop by my classroom, but I knew, somehow, it would be the birdhouse unit.

xxxxx

She arrived about a half hour before school let out-thereby missing most of the actual lesson-and sat in the back, smirking and taking notes.

I hoped the students wouldn't notice that my hands were trembling when I helped them hammer and screw things.

I kept telling myself I had no reason to be nervous. I was good at this lesson, and it was a good lesson. And even if neither of those things were true, she couldn't actually do much to me, surely: file a complaint, maybe, or denigrate me with the most biting vocabulary she could think of. I was tenured, after all, and she was just the mayor, not the superintendent.

Regardless, my eyes kept alternately finding hers and avoiding hers, and a weird feeling was bubbling in my stomach that she probably wouldn't recognize as déjà vu proper, but it was close enough to be uncomfortable.

I finished my final speech sooner than usual, and so I just stood there for a second staring at her bowed head until she lifted it with a mean smile, and I suddenly remembered I should be teaching or something instead of staring at the mayor and wondering what it might be like to kiss her, which was a thought that had sprung from exactly nowhere and had gripped me tighter than a python nevertheless.

I successfully shook off all my weird feelings for long enough to tell the students to use the last few minutes of class time to clean up their work areas. Then I had intended to go to my desk to do...anything, really. But instead I found myself at the back of the room, hovering and staring.

"I had a premonition you would come today," I heard myself whisper. I knew I was whispering because I didn't want to disturb the class, but I didn't know why I had said anything like that.

She took off her reading glasses and looked up at me, that mean smile in place, her red lips arching in a way that forced me to watch them.

"It seems we're both a little psychic: I had a premonition this would be a complete waste of time and resources," she whispered back. I leaned in. I told myself I was trying to see the notes she had taken, but the only thing I was paying attention to was her smell, which was fire and flowers and soap and alcohol. I smiled a little grimly at that-that she would have the audacity to drink before coming to observe my class, that she thought I wouldn't notice, hadn't been noticing-and she scrunched her brow.

"I suppose it pleases you to waste resources," she said.

"Well, resources are meant to be used. It's no use sitting on a pile of gold."

"The Storybrooke fourth grade education budget is far from a pile of gold," she huffed, a little louder. I surveyed the class. The students were very willfully not looking at us.

"Metaphorically," I said with a smile.

"You're even irresponsible with your metaphors."

"Like a chicken with her head cut off."

"That's a simile, dear," she said. She wasn't smiling anymore, but her eyes weren't any meaner than before. She straightened the papers in front of her and made to put them in her briefcase.

"You don't want to stay and discuss my incompetence?" I didn't know why I wanted to prolong this. I wasn't terribly interested in being soundly admonished and roundly dismissed. She raised an eyebrow and leaned back in the small wooden chair. Her eyes were mean and glistening in what might have been surprise or a dare.

"Oh, of course. However, your ineptness is so burned in my brain I won't need notes to guide my explication of your shortcomings." It was so wordy and ridiculous that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But I had, against all reason, enjoyed watching her mouth articulate each syllable.

I opened my mouth to say something, but the bell rang, and I used my open mouth to say goodbye to my students.

When I turned around again, I found her standing very close to me. Now her mouth was open, and I suspected she was about to lay into me about this or that, which was what she was here to do, of course, but-while her presence gave me some kind of unidentifiable energy, a stupid and dangerous-feeling energy-I didn't really have the energy for that, so I said,

"Regina-" she blinked, and I blinked. Saying her given name had affected both of us, but I pretended not to notice. "Do you have any hobbies?" She raised an eyebrow. "Other than antagonizing me?" I expected her to deny it, to defend her actions, to engage with me. But she pursed her lips and said,

"Not really. Antagonizing you is very time consuming."

We stared at each other. And I was suddenly angry. This drunk, terrible woman was absurd.

"Is it satisfying, at least?" I said finally.

"Not particularly. But neither is golf."

Again we stared at each other. She was so beautiful and mean. Standing so straight and so close she looked like an old movie star, and I had a flash behind my eyes of her in a fur collar.

"Have you ever considered trying something else?" My voice was low, and I didn't know what I was saying, really. Her eyes lit up in more of a dare.

"And what do you suggest? Tennis? Anonymous sex?"

I stood there agape, and she was close to laughing out loud at me. Her eyes were smiling in such a mean, daring way that I suddenly had a competitive streak.

"There's not a lot of anonymity in a town this small." It had been stated as a simple fact, but she smirked as if I'd said it suggestively.

"Miss Blanchard. Are you coming on to me?"

Was I?

"Would you like me to?"

What was I doing?

"In what universe would you think I would respond well to that?" Her eyes were blazing now, daring and blazing, and her lips were so red, and my heart was beating so loud and so fast, and I couldn't tell whether I was offended or turned on.

My body decided for me, apparently, because before I even knew what was happening, my lips were on hers. And apparently the correct response would have been "this universe" because her tongue was in my mouth.

It didn't feel good or right by any means, but it felt inevitable, and I liked it in spite of myself, and I registered the softness in my hand before I realized it was in her hair, and we were kissing for what seemed like a long time, and I felt queasy and like we had done this a thousand times before, and I pulled away. And we stared at each other. She raised an eyebrow.

"Might I remind you that you started this, Miss Blanchard." Her voice was low and biting and ragged, and her hand was on my hip so tight it was starting to hurt.

"Yes, I-" I looked at her, her lipstick smeared and her eyes so, so cruel. "I'm having déjà vu." There was a flash of something and then conspicuously nothing in her eyes.

"Lucky for you," she said. "To relive kissing me."

I was about to say something else about how that was not exactly what déjà vu was, but she gripped my hip tighter and kissed me again, and I reveled this time in the dark, inviting taste of her and the way my body seemed to arch into her with a strange muscle memory. She broke it this time, and suddenly we weren't touching at all, and my body buzzed and hummed and felt a lot of other electrical feelings it shouldn't have felt.

"Come see me when you're ready to try harder," she said.

I might've felt inadequate and small if she hadn't taken a steadying breath and run her hand through her hair as she turned to exit.


	3. She Spun Her Chains around My Heart

**She Spun Her Chains around My Heart and Soul**

Although I couldn't remember any specific time when I had actually planned for the life I currently lived, I couldn't imagine myself planning this.

I was at The Rabbit Hole, which was probably a terrible decision in the first place, and Regina Mills had just walked in, which-I had the sneaking suspicion-would spur me on to even worse decisions.

We had kissed a week ago, which had been the worst decision of all. Since then, I had been carefully avoiding even the thought of her, but that was proving difficult.

Every other day I would receive a memo about my "absurd classroom budget" or my "sub par anticipatory sets" or my "abhorrent record of pursuing continuing education." And every other night I would wake in a cold sweat knowing my mostly forgotten dream had included her lips.

I downed my cosmopolitan in two quick gulps and meant to leave, but she was suddenly there in front of my table, smirking. I told myself my head was fuzzy because of the speed with which I had just finished my drink and not because of the way her red lips looked as they curled over her white teeth and certainly not because she had just slid into the booth beside me and her arm had just brushed against mine and had felt unnaturally hot and had left goosebumps in its wake.

"Miss Blanchard," she said with a nod, the way people did when they saw each other in bars, I supposed.

"Mayor Mills," I said, willing myself not to look at her.

"This seat's not taken, is it?"

"I was just leaving."

I braced myself on the table in preparation to stand, and her hand was on my arm. It was fire.

"So soon? It's not even a school night."

I turned my head. Her face was close to my face, and I could smell that she'd been drinking prior to her arrival here. It raised my ire, and before I could stop myself, I said,

"If your memos are any indication, I should be working just as hard, if not harder, on non-school nights."

"I'm glad to hear you've been reading them. I wasn't sure you were literate."

And again I couldn't stop myself. I slammed a palm onto the table.

"Oh my," she said with a mean smile. "Alcohol is meant to relax you, dear."

"Nothing could relax me enough to tolerate your insults." She raised an eyebrow, and her smile grew wider and meaner.

"Are you willing to put money on that?" She was well on her way to leering, and she was looking me up and down with a feline voracity.

"I-You-That's deplorable," I finally spat out.

"Funny. You didn't seem to think so a few days ago."

"I-" I didn't know how to defend myself. She was an unfathomably attractive woman, and I wanted her. But I knew she was volatile, dangerous. I also knew there must have been some reason she was being this way to me-alternately flirtatious and cruel.

"I was under the impression we weren't discussing the events of a few days ago," I said.

"I never said I wanted to discuss anything."

"Well maybe I want to," I said. Maybe the liquor was making me bold. She raised an eyebrow. "Why did you kiss me?" She laughed.

"No wonder you're so painfully mediocre as a teacher. You have a terrible memory." She had said it with a dare and something mean and sexy in her voice.

"Excuse me?" I was a half inch away from pounding my palm on the table again, but she leaned in closer and said slowly in a firm, confident whisper,

"Search your tiny brain, Miss Blanchard. You kissed me." She leaned back again, smirking, and she made a hand signal to the waiter. He came over with an amber liquid in a tumbler and smiled at both of us before he retreated again. It had given me time to frantically process her words. Had I blocked that part out?

"Well you were drunk. How would you know?" I said, equally flabbergasted that it had probably happened exactly how she had said and at the words that had somehow come out of my mouth.

She laughed again.

"Do you often kiss drunk girls and hope they won't remember the details?"

"How dare you!"

"Oh, I've got a dare for you, dear. I'm drunk right now. Why don't you make a move instead of sitting there wishing you had any honor or dignity left? And then tomorrow morning we can see what I can and can't remember." I was too appalled-both at her and myself-to say anything, but I couldn't help staring at her and every smug, self-satisfied movement she was making. She took a big drink, somehow daintily, and licked her lips. She looked into her glass, then, and laughed. She looked up at me, fluttering her eyelashes. And then she slid the tumbler my way.

"Or maybe you want to see what I do with drunk girls," she said, more of a purr than anything else.

We stared at each other, and before I could taste it or think better of it, I drank what was left. It burned all the way down and settled into a pile of embers in my stomach. She smiled at me-a smile full of teeth and danger and terrible ideas.

"That's the spirit, Miss Blanchard." She slid closer to me, and her smell was overpowering and I thought she was going to touch me, but she didn't. What she did was worse: she leaned in and whispered in my ear,

"Would you like to take me home? Have your illicit way with me? Pretend you're someone else for the night?"

She did touch me then. Her hand was on my mid thigh, and it was burning hot.

I swallowed and managed to whisper,

"And who would I pretend to be?"

She chuckled into my ear and squeezed my leg a little too hard to be sexy.

"Someone who could seduce someone like me." Her voice was low and raised the hair on the back of my neck, but it was also hard and mean, and I was torn between wanting her to continue and wanting to be safe at home two hours ago-or two weeks ago-before any of this had happened.

"No," I whispered. "I don't want to be anyone other than myself." She laughed a full laugh, and I felt sick to my stomach. I felt even sicker when her hand shifted from my mid thigh to my upper thigh, her fingertips brushing against my other leg, lightly starting a rhythm like a brush on a cymbal in a smoky jazz club. I could feel my breathing start to mimic it.

"It's a bit late for that," she whispered. I wasn't sure I was supposed to have heard it, but I had, and I looked into her whiskey-soaked eyes. They were sparkling with laughter and meanness, and instead of asking her more questions she would only half answer, I kissed her, still feeling that hypnotic rhythm.

She was laughing into my mouth, and I felt stupid and like maybe this was a bad dream. But I hardly ever remembered my dreams, so it probably wasn't. But then she wasn't laughing anymore, and her tongue was in my mouth, and I wasn't sure if she really wanted to kiss me or if she wanted to win the game we were playing, and I didn't care. I cared about the woody taste of her and how her silk blouse was caressing my arm and how the rhythm she was playing stayed steady and insistent. Her other hand was in my hair now, pulling me farther into her.

It was when I put my hands on her shoulders and delighted in the feel of the fabric under my fingers that her hand on my thigh stilled and gripped my flesh firmly. She stopped kissing me, and I was late to stop kissing her. And then the hand that had been in my hair was around my chin, pulling me out of a lust-haze as she stared at me.

"Take me home, Miss Blanchard. No useless chatter, no questions, no hickies."

She pressed her keys into my hand and placed a few bills on the table, and we were in her car.

I had driven-on frenzied autopilot-to my own apartment before I wondered if she meant her home or mine. But here we were.

"I don't suppose you have anything to drink," she said as she took off her coat. I was watching the movement of her shoulders and wondering why I had let her come here and didn't answer. She was in my kitchen, looking through my freezer.

"Gin. I should have known," she said.

I took off my own coat. My heart was in my throat, thumping wildly.

"Surely you're already toasted enough," I said. She tossed her head in a laugh.

"I'm hardly ever not toasted enough. I was thinking of you." Her eyes met mine for a brief moment, and there was anger in them, lust maybe, guilt probably not. I was probably projecting although I wasn't sure what I was feeling guilty about.

"I don't need to be toasted to want you," I said, the words launching out of my mouth before I could even slow them down.

She laughed and crossed back into the living room.

"I'll be sure to file that information away."

We stood in my living room, staring at each other. She was probably analyzing me, but all I could do was wonder at her lips and the way they seemed to be taunting me.

"And I'm sure you'll send me a memo about it." Her eyes narrowed.

"This is your only warning. Remember what I said about useless chatter." I couldn't be sure what chatter she might deem useless, so I grabbed her face and pulled her mouth to me before either of us could break the rules.

Her tongue found its way into my mouth before mine made its way to hers, and it was so insistent, as if it were still trying to talk, trying to berate me with big, mean words. But inside my mouth they were all muted into a sensual chant that spoke only of satin sheets and feverish undulating. I slid my hands into her hair and let my mouth take its lashing.

Her body was pressing closer to mine, and I could feel the heat of it through all the layers of clothing between us. Her hands were on my ribs, her fingers radiating heat into my lungs through the clothes, the tissue, the bone. I worried briefly she had a fever. But I forgot to care as one hand slid lower and found its way to the back of my thigh and squeezed.

There was a resurgence of energy in the kiss, and our bodies pressed even closer together, firmly, madly. I pushed her onto the couch, and she laughed as she fell. I wondered if this was always how it would be-my kissing her earnestly and her laughing, and then I briefly castigated myself for thinking there would be an always attached to us at all. That would be a poor always situation.

I stopped thinking about this when she bit my lip, and I was more aroused than angry. I wanted to say something about it, but there was no allowance for chatter, so I clawed at her blouse in retaliation. She laughed again. I was tired of that. I abandoned the blouse and found my way under her skirt, pushed past her silk panties, and pressed two fingers into her. She gasped this time instead. I much prefered that.

I wanted to say something about that, too, but instead I just gasped with her, at her wetness and the way she arched up to me.

I was watching her now and feeling her and smelling her and hearing her. It was overwhelming and less foreign than it should've been, and I must've slowed my pace reveling in her somehow familiar erotic beauty because her eyes opened suddenly.

"Don't you dare," she said, voice low and threatening. I didn't know what I was supposedly daring to do, so I kissed her and thrust faster, finding her clit with my thumb. She moaned, and her body was quivering, or perhaps mine was, or perhaps we both were. I thrust even faster and harder, and she moaned again, stiffened, whispered something. I continued as if I were in some kind of trance, a trance full of her, and I felt her heat from every angle. I kissed her again, and it was almost pleasant and warm instead of mean and hot. She cried out into my mouth, and her hot fingers were around my wrist, stopping me.

She panted for a few seconds into my mouth, and then she pushed both my shoulders as she straightened into a sitting position.

"Strip, Blanchard. I can't fuck someone in a wool skirt and ugly cardigan."

As I undid my buttons, I bit my own lip so I wouldn't say anything about her being fucked by someone in a wool skirt and ugly cardigan. But halfway through my actions, and three quarters of the way through that thought, I found myself pinned underneath her. Apparently she couldn't wait for me to finish, and her hands were on my breasts, and her mouth was on my neck, and I could feel her heat and anger everywhere, especially in her thigh that was pressing against my clit.

"Why?" someone said.

Her face was above me, angrier than ever. Something in my stomach dropped: I must've said it.

"Why what?" she growled as she pinched my nipple, which shot pain and pleasure through my entire body.

"I don't know," I said. "Why is this happening? Why do you hate me? Why-"

She stood abruptly.

"I told you no useless chatter. I should've known anything to come out of your mouth would be useless."

She was buttoning her blouse, and I didn't know what to do to make her stay, or even if I wanted her to stay.

"I'm sure my mouth could be useful," I said, reaching for her. Her jaw clenched.

"We'd both be better off if we forgot this ever happened."

And she was gone.

xxxxx

I was fine. I was eating fine. I was sleeping fine. I was dreaming fine-the dreams were as vague and seldom remembered as always. I was fine.

The strange, truncated night I had shared with Mayor Mills was not affecting my life in any way.

Except when I looked at her.

There I was at a school board meeting, trying not to look at her.

But she wasn't even trying not to look at me.

Every time I accidentally glanced over, there were her eyes, her eyebrows, her lips. Her entire face was taunting me, her eyes boring into me.

At the first lull in new business I made a beeline for the ladies' room.

But as I stood washing my hands and staring into my own reflection, I heard the door open and smelled her as she entered-flowers and booze and fire, and I didn't want to want her, but I did, of course.

She was pulling powder and lipstick out of her purse and staring into the mirror, frowning with tight, angry eyes. Our gazes met.

"What, Miss Blanchard?" Her voice was cold and hard. She was quietly furious, and I suspected it wasn't about the new playground budget proposal.

"I-" I realized the water was still on and finally turned it off, but I didn't dare break eye contact to get a paper towel. "Are you feeling all right?"

"No," she said, keeping the perfect o of her mouth to reapply her lipstick.

"Is there anything I can-" I had been staring too obviously at her lips, and she raised an eyebrow.

"For the record, it is not a boo boo that can be kissed and made better." She blotted and returned her makeup to her purse.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. I tried a weak smile, and she frowned harder as she turned to face me.

"I want to be clear, Miss Blanchard," she said. Her face was mean without any levity at all. I didn't know what to expect. She eyed me, and I couldn't be too sure what my own face was doing. I was unequivocally turned on, but I was also worried-worried that she was, too, worried that she wasn't, worried that she would bring up my alleged incompetence as a teacher, just worried.

"Yes?" I said. It was mostly a whisper. And I watched her face this time-mostly her lips because I couldn't help myself. It was mean, definitely, but sort of suddenly it softened.

"Have you experienced déjà vu lately?" I thought for a moment.

"No." It hadn't been a lie until I had said it, and suddenly this bathroom seemed familiar somehow, and there was a weird tightening of my chest and a flash of something I couldn't identify behind my eyes.

I shook it off, and we stared at each other. I got the distinct impression she was trying to break me with the look in her eyes. But I didn't know what she thought I needed to be broken of.

"Would you like to?" She said, velvet and low.

"I don't know how you're expecting to-" she stepped closer, and her eyes traced my body. I felt naked and slightly on fire. "No, I-" she raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Well, if you're not interested..."

"Of course, I'd like to broaden my horizons. In the interest of becoming a better educator-"

She cut me off with her tongue darting into my mouth, and I felt a thousand things, none of which had anything to do with becoming a better educator. Before I knew it, I felt her erect nipple under my right palm, her supple skin under my fingertips.

"Careful, dear. Anyone might walk into this washroom," she said, and she stepped away from me.

"Let's meet," a disembodied voice that must've been mine said. She laughed.

"In what dark alley would you like to take advantage of me?" she said.

"The old toll bridge," I said. I should've been offended; I should've given her sass instead of an eager response. I could've sworn I saw her grimace before she said,

"Tonight. Nine o'clock."

I couldn't remember a child version of myself dreaming of being a doctor or firefighter or housewife. I couldn't remember a child version of myself wanting a husband. But I knew for a fact that child I couldn't remember wouldn't ever have dreamed of whatever this was.

An owl hooted its melancholy song in the distance. It probably wasn't hooting for me and the mistake I was about to embrace, but its ululations discomfited me nonetheless. It seemed to say I had no past, no future, no direction. I was wont to agree. But that was no reason not to have hope. I wasn't sure what I was hoping for, but it was something just beyond reach.

High beams flashed in my rearview mirror, and a chill coursed through me.

I watched as Regina's car pulled in behind me, and we stared at each other through my rearview mirror for a moment. She flashed her high beams again. I took this to mean she intended for me to get out, so I did.

"I wouldn't be caught dead in a station wagon," she said as she rolled down her window.

"I thought maybe we could sit on the riverbank and talk." I expected her to laugh derisively, but she just narrowed her eyes.

"Roughing it under the stars? I'm not trying to get a merit badge," she said.

"And just what are you trying to get?" She did laugh then.

"Laid, of course." She wasn't smiling, and neither was I.

"I thought since you wanted to meet somewhere that maybe-"

"Maybe I wanted a secret romance with flowers and candy and declarations in the moonlight? No, thank you."

"I'm glad we're on the same page," I said. I had hoped I had played that card right. I looked at her face in the dimness, and she seemed shocked and relieved and mad, and I didn't know what to think of any of it, but I leaned in her window all the same. "My car is more spacious, though."

"Absolutely not," she said. She made a shooing motion with her hand, and I took a step back so she could open her door. She got out and ambled toward the river.

"I always forget how outdoorsy you are," she said, not looking at me.

"It's not something that has really come up in our conversations." I was following her, and we had made it to the underside of the bridge. After a beat she turned.

"It's a little chilly for skinny dipping. Do you have a plan, or am I supposed to come up with something?" Her hands were in her blazer pockets, and she was looking at me with cold eyes.

"I-" I had actually just thought we'd make out in my car until I unknowingly said something that offended her and we'd both leave unsatisfied. "No. I just-It was the first place I thought of. When you asked me." Her eyes were only half as cold when she rolled them.

"You're terrible at this." She grabbed the collar of my blouse and pulled me to her. "I guess that's the appeal of you." She stared at me for a half a moment before she kissed me-all teeth and tongue and redirected meanness.

Perhaps she did like the novelty of me, and perhaps I did like the meanness of her. I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted her, and I wanted that coldness out of her eyes, even if angry fire was the only thing that would replace it. I pushed her against a cement pillar and was more satisfied than guilty when I heard a thud as she made contact with it. She pulled my hair for it, and our kiss broke, and she was trailing her mouth down my neck, tickling me and making me wish I'd picked a different location.

She snaked a hand under my blouse, and her skin seemed even hotter in the evening coolness. She hummed into my throat as she grazed my bra. The pillar was rough and cold under my palm, but her body was yielding and warm, and I fell into it heavily, slipping my thigh between hers, steadying myself with a hand on her hip. I pressed my nails in and started a slow rhythm with my hips. It was more luscious than I thought it might be, and I was drowning in her sweet whiskey scent and the waves of her hips meeting mine. I could feel her teeth now and wondered briefly if her hickey rule applied to me, as well. But then she stopped suddenly and brought her face up to mine.

"Do you want me to touch you?" It might've been a nice question, a concerned question. But it wasn't. It was an interrogation-her eyes narrow and suspicious, though unmistakably clouded with lust.

"Of course," I said.

"Why?" she said. I could've sworn when I had asked the same question she had run out the door. I didn't think before I said,

"Who wouldn't want you to touch them?"

"That's not what I asked." I tried to straighten up, to move away from her, but her hands were still on me, pulling me back to her. "You stay right here and answer me." She spread her hot hand across my ribs and moved it up my chest. I shivered against it. I could feel my heart beating against her fingertips, and I was wondering why she was trying so hard to seduce me when I was already seduced.

"I-guess-I like you." She tapped a finger against my thudding heart.

"No you don't. Try again." Her other hand was where it had been on my neck, and its grip tightened and pulled me slightly closer. I could feel her breath on me.

"I find you attractive." She brushed her thumb along my jaw, and I shivered again. She began to undulate her hips, and my hips followed.

"And?" she said, her eyes still interrogating but half closed.

"And I want to be close to you." Her eyes opened fully, and she scraped her nails down my abdomen and stopped when she reached the waistband of my slacks, which she grabbed forcefully.

"Why?" she said, the nails of her other hand digging into my trapezius, her hips still lazily rocking. I kissed her then, hard but not hard enough to knock her head into the pillar. She pulled me closer by my waistband, and I broke the kiss.

"I don't know what you want from me. I just-I want you. Because I do."

She looked at me-seemingly through me-for a second before she seemed to decide something and kissed me again, her tongue working in the same cadence as her hand unbuttoning my slacks.

Her fingers traced my panties several times, and I wanted to scream.

"Please," I said into her mouth.

And she did. With one finger at the pace her hips had already set. I reveled in the languid luxury of it for a moment.

"Please," I said again. She laughed, and I kissed her hard, pushing myself into her, begging her with my whole body.

And suddenly there were three fingers, fast and hard, and I didn't have any breath to thank her. She was kissing me voraciously, and I was taking all she would give me more voraciously, my body vibrating. I could feel heat radiating throughout myself, pulsating.

She moaned when I came, and afterward I watched her slide her fingers into her mouth. Her smile was calculated when she said,

"If I were slightly more drunk or we weren't under a bridge, I might be tempted to taste you first hand."

"I have gin at my house," I panted. She slithered out from under me, laughing, and began to rearrange herself. I turned toward her and leaned back on the pillar.

"Like I want to debase myself by drinking a Christmas tree and chasing it with you."

"So that's it, then?" I said.

She smiled a mean smile.

"Button your pants, Blanchard. I hear the wolves around here can smell a wet girl a mile away."

xxxxx

If I were to say I was in love with her, I would've had to reevaluate everything I'd ever thought about love. We hardly even knew each other, let alone liked each other. But there was definitely something there I couldn't describe. Something just beyond what my mind or my heart or my body could comprehend. It was more than wanting her. I could understand that. I could understand if I just thought she was pretty and I wanted to touch her. I could understand and restrain myself.

But I didn't understand, and I couldn't restrain myself.

I wanted all of her, and it didn't matter that she scared me and that she was mean. In fact, those two facts probably encouraged this confounding longing, hunger, desire.

Need.

It was a necessity, and I couldn't help but need it more every day. Even before any of this had come about, I would catch myself staring at her in school board meetings, shuddering at the sound of her voice, breathing heavily as I read her memos. I was bound to her in a way I'd always subconsciously known but had never analyzed until recently.

And now that I knew this strange thing about myself, I also knew that she had known the whole time. My question now was whether she felt-if not the same-at least some similar pull. It made little sense that she would, but it made less sense that she would treat me the way she did in any context. Or maybe she just liked the attention. For as beautiful and intriguing as she was, I had never even heard rumors about a love life.

I was thinking about this as I read to my coma patient. I felt guilty that my narration didn't have much pizazz this evening as my mind was far away from the Jack London book I'd chosen for him. (I didn't know what books an anonymous man might like, so I had picked something that looked rugged but probably wouldn't put me to sleep right alongside him.)

"You might get more of a reaction if you were in one of those little striped uniforms." I stopped reading mid-sentence. It was her. And she was here. In this tiny space I had carved out as my own.

"But would it get a reaction from you?" Why couldn't I have just told her to mind her own business? Why did I find it necessary to flirt back? It wasn't healthy.

I turned to look at her and realized belatedly that she probably had not meant it flirtatiously but sarcastically. She was still sneering.

"I highly doubt it," she said, sneering harder.

"What are you doing here?" I said. I hadn't exactly meant it accusingly, but it had come out that way because I was disgusted with my reprobate self and confused about her presence and its effect on me.

"A mayor who doesn't care about health care isn't much of a mayor," she said.

"Of course. And are you here to harass Dr. Whale the way you harass me?"

She almost smiled but then hardened her face.

"I don't harass anyone the way I harass you."

I wanted that to make me feel special, but somehow it just made me angry.

"Well, in that case, could you harass me later?" I meant to turn around and resume what I had been doing, but her eyes caught mine, and we were staring at each other. The laugh she gave was forced and a second too late to be convincing.

"No. My harassment schedule is very tight." We continued staring at each other. I put down the book and stood.

"I have no doubt. You're very efficient." I stepped closer to her. She stepped away from me. Not back. That would've meant weakness. She stepped to the side.

"I'll take that as a compliment." She cleared her throat and rearranged the coat that she had slung over her arm. "Truth be told, I came here to find you." I was trying to look into her eyes, but she wouldn't let me.

"Well, you found me." She shifted her weight and then met my eyes. They weren't exactly mean but not exactly not mean, either.

"I'm not interested in continuing our arrangement," she said, as though she were switching trash companies.

I looked over at where the unconscious man lay. I suddenly felt as though I should've asked her at the beginning for a more private arena. I looked back at her. She was standing straight, unflinching, unblinking.

"And what if I am?"

"What you're interested in has never been of much concern to me." It rang true, but it also rang false. In fact, it just rang-a loud and indeterminate alarm.

"Kiss me one last time." I didn't know where that had come from, but it had come out, and there it was. She didn't huff. She didn't roll her eyes. She stepped in closer-her fire and bourbon and roses scent making me reel-and she was staring at me so intently that I broke eye contact.

"No," she said. I touched her arm, and she didn't flinch.

"But you're not finished with me." We made eye contact, and she looked pained. I couldn't exactly tell why. I suspected it had little to do with the conversation we were having. She grimaced as she said,

"Never. Unfortunately."


End file.
